Violet liked it a lot—she liked it a little more each time she caught him doing it, and he didn’t look away.
She didn’t have the first clue what to make of that at all.
To feel like she was important—significant—to Kaz, simply because she graced him with her very person, and her time, and he didn’t ask for more.
People always wanted more.
“You know,” Kaz started to say, tossing his fork into his container, “you always get a little dimple in your right cheek whenever you think too much, or you’re frustrated.”
Violet’s brow lifted at his admission. “Do I?”
“Among other things.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll stick with the dimple, because it’s the most obvious,” Kaz said in a murmur. “And I wouldn’t be very good at my profession if I weren’t capable of reading body language. So what I might notice, someone else probably wouldn’t, or if they did, they would overlook it as nothing unusual.”
Violet licked her bottom lip, trying to relax the tension in her shoulders.
“Still there,” Kaz said after a moment.
“I’m nervous.”
“Because of my brother.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked.
“That Ruslan will run to the first person he can and spill what he knows about me? Not highly. Not at all.”
Oh.
“Why?”
Kaz smiled, softer than usual. “Because I know my brat, that’s all.”
Violet had a feeling there was more to the story, but she let him have his secrets. She still had a few of her own, after all. But it seemed like all Kaz had to do was prompt and press in just the right ways, and she couldn’t hold a thing back.
“Still, he’s just the first person to know,” Violet said softly.
Kaz’s jaw tightened briefly. “You know who I am, yes?”
“Uh, yes?”
“And you know who you are, obviously.”
Violet sighed. “Kaz, get to the point.”
Kaz shrugged. “We’ve known from the beginning that this was going to continue one of two ways, Violet.”
Her chest suddenly constricted with the heavy undercurrent of his words. They seemed safe enough on the surface, but had no doubt they would probably hurt if she looked a little deeper.
“Either we ended it,” Kaz said, as cool and calm as ever, “or we didn’t.”
Violet swallowed the lump keeping her quiet. “We didn’t.”
“What do you want, hmm?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
Kaz lifted a hand, gesturing to his place, and then between them. “How many times do you want to keep coming here? Staying the night? Sleeping with me, in my bed? Wearing my clothes, cooking in my kitchen? Sneaking away from your father, waking me up in the middle of the night … and I can keep going, Violet.”
He could.
“So maybe I haven’t seen it like that,” she whispered.
“That’s a lie. You see it exactly the same way, or you wouldn’t do it at all because you wouldn’t want to do it.”
Violet hated how he always did that in one way or another. She was used to turning cheek to things she didn’t want to see, or even sticking her head in the sand because it was easier.
Kaz didn’t let her do that.
He forced her to look around, to take inventory and accountability.
She lived a hell of a lot more in the short time she spent with him then she ever did when she was alone.
It was good.
But it was bad, too.
“For the record,” Kaz said quietly, making Violet look up at him again.
“What?”
“I like you being here. Doing those things, all of those things. And the things I didn't say, too. If I had wanted you to stop, if I didn’t want to see where this was going to go, then it would have ended a long while ago.”
Yeah, she knew that, too.
Violet didn’t understand a lot of the shit she felt and thought where Kaz was concerned, but what she did, she liked. And she wasn’t ready to end it like that.
Pushing off the stool, Violet made her way around the island to stand beside Kaz. He watched her the whole while, saying nothing. Moving sideways a bit, he offered her a hand, and she took it, stepping up to sit on his lap. An arm wrapped around her waist, and his hand landed to her bare thigh.
The touch alone was possessive.
Like he intended to keep it there.
“Eat,” he said, tugging her container across the counter and picking up the fork for her to take again.
Kaz’s chin rested on her shoulder.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
Violet didn’t feel like she had to expand on that statement.
Wasn’t it obvious enough?
What were they doing with one another?
Together?
Kaz used his fork to cut a piece of her French toast, and lifted it to Violet for her to take. “Eating.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I think this is exactly what you meant.”
It was, sort of.
The realization came hard and swift.
She wouldn’t be there, otherwise. She wouldn’t have crossed that distance to be closer. She wouldn’t want him holding her like he was.
Intimate.
Sweet.
What was that word he’d used once?
Domestic?
“We’ll figure it out,” Kaz said, his words whispering along her skin.
“Will we?”
“Somehow.”